6.  The applicants are hereditary successors in title to individuals who held 9.375 per cent of the share capital in the company which operated the “Kamentiza – Frick & Sultzer” brewery (the “Brewery”) situated in the town of Plovdiv.
7.  In 1947 the State nationalised the Brewery, together with its properties and the shares held by shareholders in the Brewery, under the Nationalisation of Private Industrial and Mining Enterprises Act (“the Nationalisation Act”: Закон за национализация на частни индустриални и минни предприятия).
8.  In February 1992 the Restitution of Ownership of Nationalised Real Estates Act (“the Restitution Act”: Закон за възстановяване собствеността върху одържавени недвижими имоти) entered into force. In accordance with the terms of the Restitution Act, the applicants successfully restituted 9.375 per cent of 20,539 square metres of land and a number of buildings situated on it, all of which still formed part of the Brewery (“the Properties”), as restitution for the 9.375 per cent of the share capital in the Brewery held by their predecessors in title and which had been seized by the State under the Nationalisation Act. In particular, the first applicant restituted 4.6875 per cent of the Properties and the second and third applicants jointly restituted a further 4.6875 per cent of the Properties.
9.  Thereafter, the applicants successfully sued the Brewery, on at least one occasion, for rental payments in respect of the Properties.
10.  In May 1992 the Transformation and Privatisation of State and Municipal Enterprises Act (“the Privatisation Act”: Закон за преобразуване и приватизация на държавни и общински предприятия) entered into force (see “Relevant domestic law and practice” below). On an unspecified date prior to 30 September 1994, the applicants made a request under section 18 of the Privatisation Act to be compensated with shares in the Brewery.
11.  During the autumn of 1993, the first applicant discovered from local media reports that the Government had sold a majority stake in the Brewery to “Brau und Brunnen GmbH”, a German limited liability company. However, the sale was not completed.
12.  On 12 November 1993 the first applicant obtained a notary deed for his 4.6875 per cent ownership of the Properties. On the same day the second and third applicants also obtained a notary deed for their joint ownership of 4.6875 per cent of the Properties. Thus, in total, the applicants were registered owners of 9.375 per cent of the Properties.
13.  On 25 January 1995 the State sold seventy per cent of the shares in the Brewery to “Interbrew”, a Belgian brewer.
14.  On 2 December 1993 the first applicant wrote to the Privatisation Agency, querying the valuation of the Brewery and requesting confirmation of the number of shares to be allotted to the applicants. The Privatisation Agency responded to the first applicant in a letter dated 3 February 1994, informing him that the valuation of the Brewery that it had undertaken was in the context of its privatisation and that it was confidential because it served as an indicative basis for negotiating the sale price of the shares to be sold by the State. In addition, the Privatisation Agency stated that the privatisation valuation was not a relevant basis for determining the number of shares to be allotted to the applicants. The letter went on to state that the decision would be undertaken by the Ministry of Industry on the basis of a separate expert valuation.
15.  Section 18 of the Privatisation Act was amended on 28 May 1996. The relevant amendment set out a method for determining the size of the shareholdings to be awarded as compensation to owners of seized property (see “Relevant domestic law and practice” below).
16.  In early 1997 the applicants complained to a number of State bodies that their application to receive shares in the Brewery had not yet been examined.
17.  On 8 May 1997 the applicants initiated an action before the domestic courts seeking a declaration that both the Plovdiv Municipality and the Privatisation Agency had failed in their respective obligations under section 18 of the Privatisation Act to inform them of the valuation of the Brewery. On 17 November 1997 the Plovdiv District Court rejected the applicants' action. That judgment was upheld on appeal by the Plovdiv Regional Court in a decision of 11 March 1998.
18.  The Ministry of Industry commenced a parallel proceeding on 25 September 1997. The Ministry requested that the Privatisation Agency provide it with the value of, inter alia, the Properties. It also asked to be informed as to the percentage of the registered share capital of the Brewery and the number of shares to be allotted in compensation for, inter alia, the Properties.
19.  In a letter of 6 October 1997 the Privatisation Agency informed the Ministry of Industry that, on the basis of a valuation dated 30 June 1994 that it had undertaken, the value of the 20,539 square metres of land, a four-storey building and a two-storey building, of which the Properties formed part, was equal to 8.11 per cent of the net value of the assets of the Brewery – corresponding to 12,445 shares.
20.  On 10 November 1997 the Ministry of Industry forwarded this valuation to the Plovdiv Municipality. The municipality subsequently informed the applicants that they would be compensated for the Properties with a total of 998 shares in the Brewery, each with a nominal value of 1,000 old Bulgarian levs (at the time, equal to 1 German mark), representing a total of 0.65 per cent of the Brewery's assets. In particular, the first applicant was to be allotted 499 shares and the second and third applicants were to be jointly allotted 499 shares. Each of these shareholdings would represent 0.325 per cent of the Brewery's assets.
21.  On 25 November 1997 the applicants appealed against the decision of the Ministry of Industry.
22.  In the course of the proceedings before the Plovdiv Regional Court, an expert valuation was conducted on 10 June 1998. This valuation compared the valuation conducted by the Privatisation Agency in 1994 with the prevailing market value of the Properties and concluded that the market value had increased by 5.38 per cent since 1994.
23.  The Plovdiv Regional Court rejected the applicants' appeal on 25 June 1998. The Regional Court held that the applicants had no right of appeal against the decision of the Ministry of Industry which set the applicants' allotment of shares in the Brewery.
24.  The applicants appealed against the above decision. On 27 January 1999, the appeal was rejected by the Supreme Administrative Court as having been submitted out of time.
25.  Following a further appeal, on 21 May 1999 the extended panel of the Supreme Administrative Court quashed the above-mentioned decision and remitted the case for fresh consideration.
26.  On 29 October 1999 the Supreme Administrative Court quashed the decision of the Plovdiv Regional Court given on 25 June 1998 and remitted the case to the Regional Court for fresh consideration. The proceedings continued before the Plovdiv Regional Court.
27.  An expert report, dated 26 January 2001, was presented to the Plovdiv Regional Court. This report concluded that the number of shares to be allotted to the applicants was not determined on the basis of the privatisation valuation of the Brewery. Rather, the valuation used had only taken one part of the privatisation valuation and had partially relied on the registered share capital of the Brewery as at 30 June 1994.
28.  On 19 July 2001 the Plovdiv Regional Court again dismissed the applicants' appeal against the decision of the Ministry of Industry to compensate them with a total of 998 shares in the Brewery. The court found that only expert valuations undertaken pursuant to the original text of section 18 of the Privatisation Act could be challenged before the courts. As the determination of the applicants' prospective shareholdings had been undertaken after the amendment of section 18 of the Privatisation Act in 1996, the court held that the balance sheet value of any property or, in the case of the applicants, the privatisation valuation of the Properties, was the proper basis for determining the number of shares to be allotted to them. However, the court considered that neither the balance sheet value nor the privatisation valuation of the Properties could be challenged before the courts. Nor, therefore, could the applicants challenge the method for calculating the number of shares to be granted to them.
29.  The applicants appealed against the above judgment on 24 August 2001. They argued, inter alia, that they had a right of appeal against the valuation of the Properties and, consequently, that they also had a right to appeal against a decision as to the number of shares to be allotted to them using such a valuation. The applicants raised an additional ground of appeal based on the long delay by the authorities in addressing their request to receive shares in the Brewery. The applicants further averred that the original process required by section 18 of the Privatisation Act necessitated that an expert valuation be performed and that the authorities had failed to comply with the requirements of the law. Furthermore, the applicants argued that both versions of section 18 of the Privatisation Act provided for a right of appeal against the valuation used as a basis for determining the number of shares to be granted to an applicant. Lastly, the applicants claimed that neither they nor the courts had ever been presented with the full privatisation valuation of the Brewery, as the information had been classified. As a result, the applicants argued that the courts had relied entirely on the calculations and determinations undertaken by the Privatisation Agency and the Ministry of Industry as to the applicable value of the Properties and therefore, the number of shares that the applicants were entitled to receive in the Brewery.
30.  The Supreme Administrative Court dismissed the applicants' appeal in a final judgment delivered on 11 July 2002. It upheld the lower court's finding that, following the amendment of section 18 of the Privatisation Act in 1996, both the privatisation valuation and the method for calculating the applicants' prospective shareholdings were not subject to appeal or challenge before the courts. In particular, the court stated:
“In essence the dispute is about which valuation is pertinent for calculating the number of shares due – the privatisation or the expert [valuation] – so as to assess which of them should be used for calculating the number of shares [necessary] for satisfying the restitution claims and to what extent that [valuation] is subject to judicial review.
The [lower court] rightly found that under section 18 of the [Privatisation Act], as in force at the relevant time, the compensation was calculated on the basis of the privatisation valuation, which is not, in itself, subject to judicial review. Thus, by not taking into account the expert [valuation], the court did not breach [the applicable] procedural rules because its assessments were irrelevant to the dispute. In the instant case, the pertinent fact is that the company was in the process of privatisation, a cash privatisation [for that matter], and in order to satisfy the claims of the former owners the only possibility was for them to receive the appropriate number of shares – which are to be calculated on the basis of the privatisation valuation.”
31.  On 17 January 2005 the Ministry of Economy invited the applicants to enter into share transfer agreements in respect of their compensation under section 18 of the Privatisation Act. In particular, the Ministry of Economy offered to transfer to the first applicant 5,489 shares in the Brewery, each with a nominal value of 1 new Bulgarian lev (0.51 euros), and to transfer 2,745 such shares to each of the second and third applicants. The draft share transfer agreements explicitly stated that, by entering into the agreement, each applicant would accept the valuation of their nationalised property contained therein and the number of shares allotted to him by way of compensation as a result.
32.  On 31 January 2005 the applicants informed the Ministry of Economy by letter that they refused to sign the draft share transfer agreements. The applicants highlighted in their letter that they did not accept the valuation of the Properties and the number of shares to be allotted to them as a result. The applicants reiterated their request that an independent expert valuation be undertaken. Moreover, they expressed surprise at the significant increase in the number of shares they were being offered in the Brewery, demanded to know the reason and rationale for the increased offer and also stated their opinion that a further increase would result from an independent valuation.